13/02/2022 I Do Like to Ride Beside the Sea Side

Our new house sit, which shall henceforth be known as The Rabbit House, is close to both Melbourne City and the beach.  All we have to do is pedal down our street to where a convenient set of lights allows us to safely cross the Nepean Highway, and then pedal a little bit more along the Elster Canal path and there we are at Point Ormand Lookout.

Which means that we've been indulging in a spot of first-thing-in-the-morning cycling.  First of all heading north toward the city:

Morning sunlight on Melbourne City.

St Kilda Marina Lighthouse, and a happy dog playing a solo game of fetch in the water.

Melbourne City from the St Kilda pier.

The Spirit of Tasmania at dock, busy loading and unloading. 

And then heading south, all the way to Mordialloc Beach via...

Point Ormond Lookout, the perfect vantage point for posed cycling photos.

Where I met these two happy (puffing and panting) chappies.

"We just finished a marathon! We ran 6 km and that's a marathon for us! Can you take a photo of us?"

Melbourne City from the middle Brighton pier.

Now I don't know if you've noticed, but right down the bottom of the world is a very cold place called Antarctica, surrounded by the very cold Southern Ocean.  The Southern Ocean bumps up against the bottom of Australia (via Bass Strait) and results in cold water sloshing around in places like Port Phillip Bay.  Melburnians may dispute my allegations about the frigid temperature of their backyard swimming pool but, my blood thinned by 50 Queensland summers of 40C+, I dare not do more than paddle in the waters of Port Phillip Bay for fear of instant hypothermia and flash-freezing.

Melburnians, particularly the older ones, are made of sterner stuff than me.  Every beach is inhabited by sturdy geriatrics dressed in business-like swimmers, budgie smugglers, and bathing caps, wading into the water and powering up and down the beach in water better suited to cold shock therapy.  The odd bathing enclosure rarely tempts them: they prefer the open ocean where hungry great white sharks prowl unseen in the depths.  On the shore or jetty stands the occasional son or daughter guarding a small grandchild who jumps up and down, waving enthusiastically as the grandparent powers past in the waters.

I am in awe of their steely resolve, inexhaustible freestyle, and commitment to open-sea bathing.

Port Phillip Bay in a nutshell: swimming geriatric; fishing tinny; Spirit of Tasmania; cargo ships.  great white sharks unseen but no doubt present; grandchildren not photographed due to general creepiness of photographing children unrelated to oneself.

The 'swimmer' sculpture commemorates the 're-nourishment ' of the beach at Hampton south of Brighton, re-nourishment being a fancy term for putting some sand back.

Another view of the Cerberus.

It being a Sunday the shared path to Mordialloc was chock full with joggers, walkers, people pushing strollers, people walking dogs, and cyclists like us playing slalom with the lot of them.  Hordes of wanna-be Tour de France cyclists zoomed past in powerful peletons but we stayed well away from them lest we catch lycra disease.  Although I must admit we followed them to the coffee shop in Mordialloc, working on the stereotype that Lycra Lads always know where the good coffee is.

Posing with the Lycra Lads in the background.

Not having had enough of the beach, we wandered back down to Point Ormond for a picnic dinner watching the crowds that had turned out to enjoy the warmer weather.

I went paddling.  The water was cold but it was nice to paddle and now I can say I went paddling in the cold waters of Port Phillip Bay and survived.  

We went home to the Rabbit House, fed the bunnies, and went to bed.